Iranian Leaders Seek to Capitalize on the Expiration of the Arms Embargo

In an assessment published by the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project, authored by Nicholas Carl and Kyra Rauschenbach with contributions from Omer Niazi, the authors examined what the expiry of the United Nations arms embargo meant for a regime under simultaneous economic and security pressure.

Tehran's interest in weapons sales, they argued, was primarily fiscal. Iran was facing severe economic strain alongside a persistent protest movement at home and instability among its partners in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq — and revenue from arms exports offered a way to underwrite domestic security spending. Iranian officials had been negotiating defense arrangements abroad, with Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and Mauritania among the likely markets, and Venezuela reportedly interested in long-range missiles.

The assessment paired that opportunity with a harder problem on Iran's northern border. The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan was spilling into Iranian territory — mortar rounds and drones had fallen inside the country, and pro-Azeri demonstrations broke out in the northwestern provinces in early October. Iranian Azeris make up roughly a quarter of the population, and many had long resented the regime's tacit alignment with Armenia.

That left Tehran without a comfortable position. Openly backing Azerbaijan was unlikely given Iran's wider geopolitical calculations, and senior commanders were already concerned that extremist fighters among Turkish-backed groups deployed there could bring the threat of attacks inside Iran. Yet neutrality — or open criticism of Turkish-Azerbaijani forces — risked inflaming exactly the constituency the regime could least afford to alienate.

Read the full assessment at the Critical Threats Project →